AFL Prevention Demonstration Projects

Introduction

Thirty-six prevention demonstration grantees are funded through the Adolescent Family Life (AFL) program and were awarded to public and private community agencies to promote abstinence as defined by the Welfare Reform legislation (P.L. 104-193) for up to 5 years. These projects are in their first, fourth, and fifth years of implementation. The purpose of prevention demonstration projects is to enable community agencies to develop, implement and evaluate programs that promote abstinence. Projects use a variety of tools including teaching curricula and providing support services. The projects work to motivate youth to not engage in premarital sex.

These projects focus on reaching students between the ages of 9 and 18 in a variety of settings, including public schools, community settings and family households. All projects involve strong interaction with parents for the purpose of strengthening the abstinence message. These projects have developed strong evaluations to determine best practices in this field. Many of the new prevention demonstration projects include rigorous evaluation designs with elements such as random assignment and control groups.

The AFL program also supports 31 care projects that provide care and prevention services to both pregnant and parenting teens. In addition to the use of curricula and approved educational materials, most care and prevention projects use holistic approaches, placing considerable emphasis on helping youth develop their assets and focus on building lifelong skills for youth. The AFL grantees implement approaches that strengthen youth assets and address the developmental needs of the target population. The projects help youth develop a belief in a positive future and their ability to take actions that will achieve that future and avoid actions that will jeopardize it.

Grantee Listing (including project descriptions): [pdf] [html]